cast off its incumbrance. They claim for themselves, like other secessionists, and like the Federal States themselves at no remote period, the sacred right of insurrection. They say they are the salt of the Union, and in the fulness of time they shall break the republic in pieces like a potter's vessel. Nor is the boast improbable. Separated from the Western States by a lofty chain of mountains, they will have little to fear from that quarter. Weak as the Federal government must be when the civil war is over, whatever be its result, a glance at the map will show that the territory of Utah, which is now reckoned the second in the eight minor States, by which it is surrounded, is well qualified to become their head. It produces iron and coal; and the deposits of both are said to be inexhaustible; other metals have been found; gold is supposed to exist, and lumps of virgin silver have been discovered in the mountains. It is well provided with water, and has its fresh-water lakes as well as that great inland sea, the Salt Lake, sixty or seventy miles in length, and about half as many wide (it yields about twenty per cent. of pure common salt, and about two per cent. of foreign salt). As usually reckoned, the Utah territory is six hundred miles long from east to west, and three hundred and fifty broad, and the area in square miles equals that of a great European kingdom. If the States lying on the Pacific should assert their independence, Utah may become the Empire State of the new community, and the Mormons stand at the head of a new republic; and it may be as dangerous for a time to civilization in the new world as Mohammedanism once was in the East. Its methods are equally unscrupulous; and if it had the power, we believe it would persecute the true followers of the Cross with equal hatred, perhaps with equal zeal, though not with equal courage. Perfidy and assassination would be its weapons; its baseness would teach it to prefer such methods to the drawn scimitar and the open field. It seems at present to be gathering the elements of future power, perhaps of future conquest. Union, secresy, wealth, scorn for all mankind, and a sovereign contempt of all institutions except its own, intense fanaticism, and an ambition which nothing less than its own. history can justify,-these are in its hands, or they lie within its reach. The future may witness its swift destruction-a destruction swifter than its growth; or it may be one of those last plagues which He only shall destroy, before whom heaven and earth shall flee away, and at whose glance Antichrist in every form shall perish.

DEACONESSES OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, AS EXHIBITED IN THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS.

SIR,-In the discussions respecting the Female Diaconate which have arisen in England, and which, I hope, are likely to continue till this diaconate is established among us in a wise and practical form, some thought has naturally been given to the Deaconesses of the Early Church.

It does not indeed follow, that if we are to have an authorised ministration of women as a part of our ecclesiastical system, it must necessarily be the restoration of something in the ecclesiastical system of the first three or four centuries. Such a ministry might be suggested by the circumstances of our times, and fully justified by Scripture, without having anything exactly corresponding with it in Primitive times.

The converse distinction, on the other hand, also must be borne in mind. The Scriptural aspect of this question, and its early Ecclesiastical aspect, are two different subjects. It is quite conceivable that we might find a system prevailing in the first three or four centuries of such a character as, when compared with the New Testament, evidently to jar and clash with the Inspired Writings. In such a case, to restore what is early, would not be to establish what is Apostolical.

These two cautions cannot be too carefully remembered. But the remembrance of them does not make us feel it at all less desirable to study the question of that diaconate of women which existed in the early ages. Before we can even discuss the question of restoring Primitive Deaconesses, we must know what those Deaconesses were. We must also endeavour to distinguish between what was essential and what was accidental in their office. Thus only shall we be able to determine whether the circumstances of our times are such as to demand or suggest the restoration of the ancient system.

Feeling the importance of this inquiry, I have made it my business, with such leisure as I could command, to prosecute it independently, not simply reading what others have compiled, but examining the original sources. And I shall be glad if you can find room for some of the results.

As to the original sources of information themselves, they are very widely scattered over a large range of writings extending through several centuries. We find incidental notices of Deaconesses in commentaries, in treatises, in histories, in the decrees of Councils, in the enactments of both the Civil and Canon Law, and even in heathen writers. It may be doubted whether these notices have ever been collected, examined, and

criticised as carefully and closely as the subject deserves. It must indeed be acknowledged that Ziegler* among the Germans, and our own Bingham,† have written concerning it with much learning and discrimination. Nor ought the Dutch Suicer to be forgotten, who in a shorter compass has given an excellent summary of the chief facts of the case. But still these, and all other writers on the subject, have left something to be desired. One source of information,-the so-called Apostolical Constitutions-has certainly not been used with this view so fully as it might have been. It is, perhaps, the most important document with which we have to do in the present investigation; and I believe my whole task will be simplified, if I confine myself to it in the present letter. No doubt the argument is far more powerful when its various elements are used in combination. The true force of historical evidence is best seen when other historical evidence can be adduced to the same effect. But there is some advantage in the present instance, as regards clearness, in pursuing certain threads separately and independently. And if the strands of the rope are once distinctly in our hands, it is not very difficult afterwards to combine them.

A word must be said first upon the Apostolical Constitutions themselves. To discuss thoroughly their intrinsic value, the history of their formation, their probable date, would be quite impossible here. Still a few sentences on the subject are necessary.§

Now, in the first place, we cannot possibly accept these Constitutions as given literally by the Apostles. Nor can we even take them as a pure unmixed representation of the Church of the first three centuries. There is no doubt that they are largely interpolated from corrupt sources and from later periods. But then it must be observed that this does not affect our present argument so much as at first sight appears. Whatever is said about Deaconesses in the Apostolical Constitutions, proves their existence within the period during which these Constitutions came into their present form. It is evidence, moreover, of the state of feeling in the Church regarding those officers within that period. And the lower the date to which we must bring down the composition of these documents, the larger is the range of time through which we can trace these officers, and

Casparis Ziegleri de Diaconis et Diaconissis Liber Commentarius (Wittenberg, 1678). The book is now rather rare, and is to be had sometimes bound up with his Superintendens, sometimes with his dissertation de Dote Ecclesia. He treats of Deaconesses in his last chapter.

+ Antiq. of the Chr. Church. vol. i. bk. ii. ch. 22.

Vol. 61.-No. 291.

See under the head "Diaconissa," in his Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus.

§ I have throughout, besides the book and section, given the page from the well-known Patres Apostolici of Cotelier (Antw. 1698). I may add, that there is a recent and very convenient edition of the Constitutions alone by Ueltzen. (Schwerin and Rostock, 1853.)

2 D

through which we can gather scattered notices of prevailing sentiment in regard to them.

But now, as to the date itself, I believe the opinion of those is correct, who consider a very large part of these Constitutions to be Ante-Nicene. It would not be difficult to range high authorities on two sides, the spurious and corrupt character of the documents in question being maintained on one side, their early date and proximity to the Apostles on the other. This of itself presents a strong ground for thinking that the intermediate position is the right one; a view which (to adduce only one name) is in harmony with the judgment of a shrewd critic, whose opinion on such a point deserves to have great weight, the late Professor Blunt.* I cannot well doubt that the Constitutions do give us what may be called a picture of the Church of the first three centuries,—a picture distorted, doubtless, and in many places retouched,—but still a picture which is a moderately good likeness on the whole. It is a picture in which many personages are found irregularly grouped together, and probably not always in their right order and relation. Among these personages, there is no doubt that there are Deaconesses to be seen. It is with them alone that we are concerned at present.

We ask three principal questions in regard to these Deaconesses. (1.) How far are they really and definitely prominent personages in the scene before us? (2.) What were their official duties? (3.) What their ecclesiastical status? The answers to these questions will give us a clear and comprehensive view of the whole subject.

(1.) Now, in the first place, there is no doubt that the Deaconesses are very prominent in that picture of the Early Church which is given in the document under consideration.

The Apostolical Constitutions are by no means of great length; but those women who were engaged under this title in official ministrations are mentioned, or implied, more than twenty distinct times. And not only so; but considerable portions of two books (the third and eighth) are taken up with regulations having reference to their ministry. And perhaps even more stress ought to be laid on those incidental notices which assume the office as a matter of course. When, for instance, an institution is used in an illustrative manner, to exhibit an analogy or to elucidate a theory, it is evidently a familiar institution. Nor is the force of this remark weakened by the fact that the illustration or analogy may seem to us very

*Plain Sermons, vol. iii. p. 241. Prof. Blunt adduces as arguments for the early date of certain parts of the Constitutions, the allusions to persecutions, to Heathen tribunals, to them ixture of Christian and Heathen members

in the same family, to the poverty and mean rank of the Christians, and to the strong sympathy among them, indicating, in his opinion, scanty numbers and close relationship.

fanciful and even revolting. We shall perhaps be disposed to find little fault with such a passage as the following, where, in comparing Christianity with Judaism, it is said (ii. 25. Cotel. 238), that Jesus is the High-priest, the Presbyters are the Priests, "the Deacons and Deaconesses, and other subordinate " persons, the Levites." In another placet (ii. 26. Cotel. 239) we find a similar analogy, but with different details. Here the Bishop represents the Almighty Father, the Deacon is compared to the Son, the Deaconess to the Spirit, inasmuch as "she does and speaks nothing without the Deacon," and moreover, "no woman is to come to the Bishop or Deacon without the Deaconess." In this instance we find it impossible to sympathize for a moment with this train of thought. But no argument could be better to prove the fact, that Deaconesses were a conspicuous part of the ecclesiastical organization of the time. On this head it is needless to say more. Whatever follows under the two other heads is a support and confirmation of this.

(2.) The last quotation introduces us at once to our second point, viz., the consideration of the duties of the primitive Deaconesses. We must not expect to be able to gather all their duties from the scattered notices in the Apostolical Constitutions; but one guiding principle which regulates these duties has already been before us. The ministrations of these persons had especial reference to the requirements of their own sex, and to the maintenance of decorum in the relations of men and women. Other passages in the Constitutions enable us to see this in detail.‡ Meantime, in order to perceive their full force, we must bear in mind the seclusion which was customary among Greek women, at the time when Christianity was established in the Levant.

This kind of seclusion was in some degree observed in the Early Church, and at times of public worship. At such times the Deaconesses were door-keepers (viii. 28. Cotel. 411.) to that part of the church where the women were assembled separately, as indeed is the custom among the Oriental Christians now. In another passage, where the church is compared to a ship (ii. 57. Cotel. 263) it is directed that the Deaconesses are to take their stand at the entrances of the women, "like those who receive the fares of the passengers as they go on board.”

*These other subordinate persons, placed here in the same general group as the Deacons and Deaconesses, are Singers, Door-keepers, Widows, Virgins, and Orphans. I shall have occasion to refer to them afterwards.

† One of these contexts passes gradually into the other; and I cannot help thinking that the first part, where the Lay-people are addressed as "God's chosen church and holy nation," is of carlier date than the last part, where

the Bishop is spoken of as "God's vicegerent upon earth.”

As another specimen of a general passage, I may mention iii. 19. (Cotel. 289) where it is said that the female Deacon is to make it "her active business to do service to the women." And again, iii. 15 (Cotel. 287) the Bishop is charged to choose "a faithful and holy Deaconess for the ministrations that relate to women."